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The Ticket to Opportunity Platform

WE BELIEVE in inclusion, that all Hoosiers, regardless of race, class, and other differences, should have opportunities to participate fully in our economy and democracy, which too often criminalize people of color and exclude full participation.

WE BELIEVE in God’s Abundance, yet see daily the devastating effects of the growing gap between the rich and the poor exacerbated by shrinking access to good jobs, inadequate transit, and diminishing wages.

WE BELIEVEin keeping together families, yet too often children go to bed without their parents because of the systems that over-criminalize people of color, filling up our jails with the poor, the mentally ill, and the addicted who would be better served by treatment and jobs. We have stood by families in despair as the only bread winner is sentenced to deportation because of a minor traffic accident.

This year, we can act as a city to honor these values and put in place a system of opportunity that builds our shared destiny. IndyCAN’s “Ticket to Opportunity” Platform includes the following key elements:

Transit Equity

Shared Distribution of Benefits. There should be minimum standards for the jobs, service, and revenue expended: at least 25% of expenditures should benefit disadvantaged communities; 30% of all jobs created in construction and operations should be filled by the 6 zip codes with highest unemployment; and 10% should be filled by disadvantaged workers.

Equitable Access. One of the transit system’s top priorities should be addressing high unemployment so that communities of color are able to get to job hubs. Changes in routes and mode of service should be informed by an equity index that measures unemployment, commute times, job density, and race.

Partnership in Planning. Any citizen-governing body of stakeholders should include at least 30% transit riders who live in disadvantaged communities.

End Reliance on Incarceration

Pre-Trial Services. People should be detained only when they pose a significant risk to public safety or flight.

Scale-up Jail Diversion. People with mental illness or addiction should be diverted to treatment and jobs, not incarceration.

Invest in Transition Jobs. Stop incarceration’s revolving door by investing in transitional jobs that give people a fair shot at a second chance.

IndyCAN on the Web

Indianapolis Congregation Action Network and PICO National Network are nonpartisan and are not aligned explicitly or implicitly with any candidate or party. We do not endorse or support candidates for office.